The Goldilocks Zone

Today's post is about balancing description in your narrative. You don’t want too much description, or not enough description. You want to find that infamous Goldilocks Zone where the amount of description is just right.

Incorporate All the Senses

You've probably heard this one a gazillion times. That's because it works. 

Using any other sense besides sight makes a huge difference in narrative because sight is the sense most of us rely on most frequently. It's useful and necessary, but kinda boring.

The addition of sound, touch, smell and taste enhances the reader experience because those senses are used less frequently, making them stand out more.

Try to include as many senses as you can, but only the ones most important to the thing you are describing. It isn't necessary to use all the senses in every given scene.

How do you know which senses are most important? See the next item directly below.

Zoom In On Unique/Contrasting Details

• A mouse the size of an elephant
• An elephant the size of a mouse
• A wagon shaped like a rocket
• A cave that smells like laundry detergent
• Roses that smell sour
• A car wreck that sounded like guitar strings snapping
• An ice cube that burns
• Salty ice cream

Not all of your descriptions will be as contrasting as those examples, but the key is to find something so specific about the thing you’re describing that the image implants into the readers head and they begin to experience the story first-hand.

Pick one or two things that stand out in your setting or characters and describe that in great detail. (See, “Description Length”)

Filter Description Through the POV Character

When the POV character directly conveys how they feel about the sight/smell/sound/etc. they are experiencing, it makes the description more entertaining for the reader. Simple as that.

People read encyclopedias when they want a list of facts. People read stories because they want to become immersed in a world outside of their own.

Revise that info dump until it feels like something the POV character would actually think about or say in that moment. Show their personality. Express who they are on the surface and at their core. It will bring your story to life.

Skip the Mundane

We live in an age where the world is literally at our fingertips. There are some things that just don’t require much explaining in fiction. Some things are universal enough that you can mention them without going into a lot of detail about it.

You always need to set the scene, and some description is always required, but a hospital is a hospital, a church is a church, and a school is a school no matter where you go.

Of course, not all hospitals, churches or schools look exactly the same as one another. They come in all different sizes and depending on where you are in the world, they will vary in numerous other ways. Those will be the unique details you pick out to describe your specific setting.

Beyond that, readers will imagine the kind of setting that’s most familiar to them. When we read a story set inside a school for instance, we tend to imagine the school we used to attend or the school we send our children to. We imagine the hospital where we go to see our personal physician, and the church we were baptized in, etc.

Only if there is something unique about the setting as described in the story we’re reading do we begin to see a different image in our minds.

For instance, the school may be described in the story as being held in a castle with lots of secret passageways, the professors are wizards, and ghosts frequently roam the halls. (See: “Zoom In On Unique/Contrasting Details.” Also, Harry Potter.)

Description Length

It’s not the size of the boat. It’s the motion in the ocean.

Sometimes you’ll need a paragraph or more to describe something. Other times you’ll need just a sentence or two. Fantasy writers, for instance, usually need to include more description than thriller writers because of the various new concepts that are introduced in a fantastical setting.

The Goldilocks Zone is what you make it. Everyone has their own tolerance level when it comes to description. Some readers require more description than other readers do. Each individual reader will bring his or her own preferences to your story, and there’s no way to anticipate that.

Utilizing the techniques above have helped me stay within a general safe zone.

5 Phrases That Boil My Blood

The following are phrases that make my blood boil.


Write what you know

This is a darling we should all kill on sight. This phrase makes my blood boil for a reason you might not expect. The reason I strongly dislike this phrase is because of it's sheer pointlessness. Every writer writes what they know. It is literally impossible to write what you don't know. Mind. Blown. You just got raptured. Deal with it.


Rules of Writing

Not really a phrase that people say, but I'm a rebel. I just changed the rules on you.

For all the so called "rules" that we make such a hoopla about, they really don't exist. They're imaginary. They're all made up. They're unicorns. The truth is, we all pretend as if these things are real tangible objects. Yes, they work when implemented--Sometimes. Most of the time. If you're lucky. The rules are effective within the construct we have collectively built. Keywords: we. built.

Rules are our creation. These rules were not bestowed upon Earth before we arrived. We all just agree that things should be a certain way so it doesn't get confusing, which is great. Confusion is bad. But anything man made can be changed, manipulated, rearranged, reimagined, reconstructed, remade. We just don't bother to do it because it's really really hard work. And we human beings love our consistency.

Just to clarify: I'm not advocating that we should in any way disregard the rules of writing. Not at all. I would never suggest any writer to not follow any of the guidelines that would only improve their craft and the experience for the reader, especially if you wish to get published. However, as an artist, once we realize that all of it is an illusion, we free ourselves from the Matrix. And sometimes it's healthy to give yourself that room to experiment. Learn kung fu.

Whether or not you will end up with publishable work is another conversation, which is constantly bandied about all over the Internets, so much so that there's no need for me to regurgitate it here.

"You can not put a grade on true art." -- Lil' B

Never [insert thing you should never do]

Anytime you encounter a phrase with the word "never" in it, it's always wrong. (Unless it's something like: never wander into a Bear's home and use their furniture or eat their food. But we're taking about writing.) Never is nearly forever. That's a really long time to exclude something that is already a part of our ever evolving language.

Maybe the phrase should say: You could try this some other time, but not right now.


Only if you're a genius

It's often said around writing blogs [who?] that one shouldn't write a particular way unless you're a genius. Usually someone will say, "[Genius author] could get away with writing this way because they are a genius."

Well, I guess I have to become a genius then or else I'm screwed because everything has already been done before...by geniuses.

Example from Elmore Leonard's Ten rules for writing fiction:

9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things, unless you're Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language.

Why does Margaret Atwood get to have all the fun? No, I don't think Mr. Leonard was actually saying that only Margaret Atwood is capable of writing those kind of scenes. Nor was he saying that she was the only one that should write them. He was complimenting a fellow great author. But the crazy old Internets have taken this phrase to mean that only geniuses should attempt the crazy, good stuff because only geniuses can pull off the crazy, good stuff. [citation needed] And new writers get lost in the sauce, wondering whatever shall they do?

The interesting thing about this phrase is that people outside of the genius' head tend to recognize the person as a genius more so than the actual genius identifies his of herself as a genius.

Following me? Just like insane people think they're sane. Geniuses think everyone thinks the way they do until we make them aware of how primitive we all are in comparison.

Let me put it another way. Einstein wasn't going around saying, "Hey numskull. I'm a genius. Listen to everything I have to say." He simply spoke his mind, honestly and people listened to him because they recognized the genius in him.

Drawing circles like a boss!

Maybe Einstein is a bad example because he's like a super genius. (And I'm no historian. So my Einstein facts will be at least 1% inaccurate. Maybe more.)

Let's take an author you admire. Think of your favorite author, the one you think of as a genius. You love everything they do. More than likely he or she doesn't think of themselves as a genius. They simply write what they're driven to write, what they love, the story they can't not write. Your genius author probably even has doubts about their work just like we do. We're all just people, man.

I could be wrong, but I don't think that authors, like Hemingway for instance, knew he would be the great almighty Hemingway before he became the great almighty Hemingway. That would take some serious clairvoyance.

If you are a genius, you won't know it unless you hang around idiots who know a lot less than you or when people declare you a genius because you've accomplished something no one else has, just like your favorite author. But the odds are you aren't a genius. The good news is you don't have to be. Ever heard of Snooki? (That could be bad news depending on how you look at it.)


Readers know what they want

This phrase is incomplete. In it's entirety it should read: Readers know what they want only when they come across it--after the fact, and not in advance of the existence of said material.

Before Harry Potter existed, no reader was shouting, "Why hasn't anybody written Harry Potter yet?  Don't they know I want to read it? The next new author should write Harry Potter. They'll make a billion dollars."

Sounds silly, right? This is the exact reason why you can't write explicitly for readers. They don't know what they want. Readers are great at finding what appeals to them from existing material. That's it.

You have an amazing book idea right now, something I could never think of. I don't know that I want to read it yet because from my perspective, whatever it is, it doesn't exist.

Write with readers in mind, but not for them. Be considerate of your potential readers, but you can't really cater to them because authors don't know exactly what readers want either. If we did, we'd all be instant bestsellers.

There's a middle ground between writing what you love and making that reader-friendly. Find that balance. When you do, let me know where you found it. I need some of that mojo.


Disclaimer: Those tiny wikipedia links [who?]  & [citation needed] were meant as a joke. I was poking fun at my own weasel words and unverified claims. I hope you got the joke and didn't think I copied and pasted the post from some wiki article or something.

Writing 101: Bigger Than Big Is

Some fantasy worlds seem huge while somehow appearing to still be holding tons of information back. Some of the best fictional settings give the reader a sense that the world beyond the main characters is alive. It feels as if that world could truly exist somewhere over the rainbow even if the main characters had never been born. We, the readers, just so happen to experience the world through the point of view of said main character. How do authors do this? That’s what we’re going to discuss in this installment of Writing 101: How to create a setting that's bigger than big is.

Zoom in on specific details in your setting.
Each character is the main character of their storyline.
Brief tangents enrich your world.

This topic alone could fill up a book all by itself. A single blog post won’t do it justice, so we may end up revisiting this in the future. Some of these techniques also might be a little more suited to fantasy writers. Some genres simply don’t require the story’s world to feel large at all. As always, take what you need and leave the rest. Here a just a few ways to expand your world for the reader:

It’s the Small Things That Count

Novels are unique in relation to other forms of entertainment. Fiction is allowed a certain leeway to go on tangents whereas time constraints placed on movies and TV shows prevent those stories from stretching their legs. This is the advantage of the novel. Authors can take their stories off course a little and should be encouraged to do so. It makes for a meatier storytelling experience, and it’s what separates the novel from all other forms of entertainment. The key is to not go overboard. But that's true with anything, right?

Think of your world as the Big Bang. Begin by introducing small details and then, little by little, branch out with bigger revelations as the story unfolds. To start out, pick a unique part of your setting and explain it in explicit detail. The reader will feel that since you as the author know so much about the small stuff that when you gloss over the big stuff later, they’ll simply ride along with you. They'll understand that there's too much to tell and will accept the illusion you've created.

In this case, it’s a good idea to know your world inside out so that you'll have a detail to zoom in on in the first place. J.K.Rowling charted out everything, and not all of her ideas made it into her books. Whether you outline extensively before you write, or if you learn about your world as you go along, you must know a whole lot more about your world than you're ever going write about. You don't always have to know everything up front. Sometimes you discover things about your world as you write about it. For me, that's part of the fun and I’m a strict outliner.

Abed Delivers A Baby

Each character is the main character of his or her own story. Think about how in real life everyone’s got their own thing going on. You might sincerely care about your friend’s problems. But they’re not always central to the running storyline that is your life. We all have a life of own, and depending on the scope of the story you’re trying to tell, so should each of your characters.

Awhile back on the TV show Community, the writers pulled off a really cool concept. One of the main characters had a mini adventure that took place entirely in the background of the show. [YouTube Link] A good idea to remember is that even though your story’s plot should always revolve around your main characters, your world, more often than not, shouldn't. Allow some of your key minor characters to go on their own "off screen" adventures. It isn’t necessary to jump into their POV either (although that’s an option). Whenever they show up naturally in your story, they can tell the main characters about their adventures à la Gandalf the Grey every time he disappears and returns.

At times in Harry Potter, every character Harry met had a moment where they seemed to have something else going on that didn’t necessarily have anything to do with Harry at all. Hermione had S.P.E.W. Hagrid had Aragog, Grawp, and Norberta. Although the plot of each book revolves around Harry, the wizarding world itself could have gone on without or without Harry's existence. Some of the characters could have even had books of their own written about them.

Every single character doesn’t need to have some wild adventure going on “off camera”, but it does need to appear to the reader that there’s a world out there doing its own thing. One small way to accomplish this is to simply show you minor character or bit player doing the very thing he’d be doing if your main character wasn’t around. Have your MC show up and interrupt the minor character from their daily routine.

Caution: Your main characters always come first. Never give an off screen adventure to a minor/background character at the expense of the main plot. Don’t let your minor characters take over the story. Don’t make their adventures so much cooler than your main characters’ that your reader starts to wonder why you didn’t write that story instead. Or maybe you should write that story instead.

“A Royale with cheese.”

Give your characters the freedom to chew on the scenery. Have them allude to significant moments in the history of your world. Let their conversations go off on tangents to show their personality, what they care about most, their likes and dislikes. This could go against the grain of the rhetoric "tension on every page", but all of our favorite authors do this successfully. Done right it isn’t even noticeable in a negative way. Your favorite author reels you in with juicy conflict, teases you with tension, and entices you with sympathetic or interesting characters. By the time they serve you that low-tensioned tangent scene in Chapter 10, you had already been salivating for more information about the characters and the world, and you eat it all up when it finally lands on your plate.

Allowing your characters to talk briefly about things that have nothing to do with the main plot is one way the reader can learn more about the characters and their world at the same time. Keyword here is briefly. I want to caution you to be extra careful with the tangents. Not to discourage any writer out there, but not all of us can pull a tangent off. Not all readers even enjoy them. In some instances this very technique can be a detriment to the telling of your story. There are many scenes in fantasy novels that go on and on and nothing (in terms of conflict/tension) ever happens. Many readers do enjoy that aspect of books, but keep in mind that just as many readers don’t like it very much. Know your audience.

Caution: Keep tangents brief. Get back to the main plot as soon as possible. At all times try to make your tangents relevant to the characters (in how they feel or view the world, etc.) or the setting (how it changed or is changing etc.). Tangents should come off natural and shouldn’t feel out of place storywise. If your tangent is just something you think is cool or funny and really has no purpose other than that, be honest and murder your darlings, please. Never include extraneous information without intending to for a story specific purpose. If it’s your goal to input a slice of worldbuilding life in a particular scene, by all means do it. Only as long as you know the purpose you're providing it for the reader. Make sure you know your intentions with that scene. All readers may not appreciate the tangent, but at least it won’t be in your story by mistake. Haters gonna hate.

How To Incorporate These Techniques Into Your Story

None of these methods should ever take over your main plot. Sprinkle them throughout your story in little doses. It's all about creating the illusion that there's more to tell. Zoom in on a specific detail while leaving large chunks of information out of the story on purpose. Hint at things going on in the background, but don't give the full story or maybe not even a resolution. Interrupt those tangents with the main plot just when the tangent was getting interesting. When reader's only get bits and pieces, we naturally grow curious about what isn't said or hasn't been explored.

Any questions?